Red Dead Redemption 2 talks guns

One thing Rockstar wants to emphasize in Red Dead Redemption 2 is that guns aren't the only way to solve your problems. Well, until they are the way to solve your problems. But with that in mind, I'm recalling something Jason Mendoza said in The Good Place: "Anytime I had a problem and I threw a Molotov cocktail, boom! Right away, I had a different problem." Wise words indeed.

The proper care and feeding of your guns in Red Dead Redemption 2 is important. The more you use them, the better they get. At the same time, the more you use them, the more they degrade. That's why you need to keep those bad boys clean.

You can carry all your weapons on your horse, but when you hop off, you can only carry two guns with you. Are you bounty hunting in close quarters? Better take a sawed-off shotgun with maximum stopping power. Are you game hunting for pelts? Better take a lower-caliber varmint rifle so you don't shred the critter to pieces. These are some of the considerations you have to make. It won't make sense to take a rocket launcher into every encounter. (There aren't any rocket launchers.)

Customization is all there. Different scopes, colors, engravings, trigger guards, barrels, frames, etc. Don't be a sucker walking around with stock pistols. You aren't doing yourself any favors if you ignore gun modifications.

Also: holsters. Put a single-handed pistol in each hand. You know what's always the best part about being a rogue in role-playing games? The ability to dual-wield weapons. Same is true here, you rogue.

Dead Eye is back and grows with you. Slow-motion is, bar none, one of the coolest effects in any video game. That's what Dead Eye is. Us old codgers that grew up on Max Payne call it Bullet Time, but Dead Eye is nearly the same thing. Slow things down, paint your targets with little red X's, then click the go button and watch Arthur Morgan rip a hailstorm of bullets into multiple targets, or just perforate one target with a full load. Later, you will see critical and fatal points light up on a target, like the heart and lungs. In case you want to dead somebody but don't necessarily want to give them a closed-casket funeral. Shooting someone in the head always does the trick too, though.

Check out the official Rockstar post for further details. They've got some nice looping gifs down at the bottom of the page. Shows off the varied and specific articulations Arthur Morgan uses when firing different weapons. Locking and loading, firing and recoiling—these all animate differently for different guns, of course. You can't use a bolt-loading animation if you've got a six-shooter in your hands, right? This is all obvious stuff, but Rockstar somehow makes it look sexy, like every game with guns doesn't do this exact same thing.

Red Dead Redemption 2 launches in two weeks on October 26 on PS4 and Xbox One.